Aerial photos since 1999...

Pictured: Port of Gulfport 2003

I've been documenting the Mississippi Gulf Coast since 1999, via aerial photography. And I'm proud of the work that has been done.

Recently I was contacted by a large distribution firm looking for old photos of the Mississippi State Port at Gulfport. I sent them several photos dating back to 2003. (I know I have earlier photos, but those were on slide film -- and too difficult to review through.) Anyway, in the process I was reminded that for a short period of time, Carnival Cruise lines was operating out of Gulfport. (Pictured above)

As I was digging through my old files, I realized a few things:

1) I could have done a better job of labelling my photo records in the past. If so, finding photos of specific places would be so much easier today! (Note to self: Correct this for future photos)

2) Technology and digital photo quality has really improved over the years. My oldest files were take on film or slide (positives). Then around 2003, we still took on film, but the processor digitized the image and gave us a CD, along with the negatives/positives. In about 2004/2005, I purchase my first professional digital camera and we started shooting digitally and processing our own photos. At that time, the cameras only had about 5 megs of data per image. Today, my camera shoots with 35 megs per shot. The individual image files are so large that I had to purchase a special computer to handle the file sizes. To say the least, image quality is fantastic.

I've gotten some fabulous photos documenting the beauty and wonder of the Mississippi/Louisiana wetlands. These watery landscapes are disappearing, and my photos might be the last reminders of what once was. I'm really proud of these and know that they will become important one day.

It looks like drones are upon us, and again changing the aerial photography environment, and I suppose I'll have to change a bit along with that, just like I changed technologically with the cameras. Drones provide an exciting opportunity to get close to a subject property, and offer a totally new perspective that we haven't had before. But airplanes will always be at the heart of my photography, because you can get such a great perspective and cover a lot of territory from an advanced height and remote locations.